★★★★
The stage is an empty concrete shell. In the centre sits a room that the audience have a full view into—there’s a chaise longue, a lamp, and shutters keeping the outside world outside. As the music pulsates and the lighting casts shadows onto the walls, one man’s deepest desires are revealed as dancers swirl around Giovanni’s room.
Interpreting the 1956 James Baldwin novel Giovanni’s Room through the medium of dance, Phoenix Dance Theatre are a rippling tour de force of energy covering the stage at the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. Their movements are supple and sensual and so light that a sort of ethereal nature transcends the room. In a dreamlike state the cast capture the complexity of relationships and co-dependence in a couple through tender movements that morph quickly into friction and back again. The choreography by Marcus Jarrell Willis enchants with every step as the dancers glide through the story without want or need of a spoken narrative.
Giovanni (Dylan Springer) is the barman, and the protagonist, David (Phikolwethu Luke), remains unnamed throughout. An isolated figure, he oftens dwells alone in the spotlight. He moves between anguish and a detached loneliness and feels almost parallel to the world around him. That is, until the nightlife descends. As the scene at the bar flits from emphasis on the two almost entwined men to the mosaic of the ensemble, the music amplifies the tension and sensuality. It strikes a delicate balance between the debauchery of inebriation and the spark of romance of two people in a crowded bar. Remarkable pacing keeps the audience hanging onto every second as the performance soars.
The intimacy of the room in the centre of the stage allows for the heat of the love affair. Glowing a soft red when entangled, Springer and Luke glide through the room and across the stage in fits of passion and moments of careful tenderness. The choreography is at once explosive and soft, and the audience are trapped in the room with them, watching as the two free themselves within the four walls.
Plunging through giddy highs and limitless lows, Inside Giovanni’s Room is a heart-breaking delve into sexuality and the social constructs surrounding it in the 1950s. It is a moving, powerful performance, and every dancer compels as soloists or when they come together in a reeling mass. The music drums a beat throughout, weaving between silent and cacophonous as the tension twists. As with anything devoid of a spoken narrative, the plot must be conveyed somehow. Inside Giovanni’s Room perhaps requires slight contextual knowledge, as unnamed characters pepper the stage and you are left trying to fit them into the puzzle with very little direction. However, these subplots only seek to solidify the central themes and do not detract from a general understanding of the show.
Inside Giovanni’s Room is a masterpiece of physical theatre. The dancing thrums onstage to bring to life the crushing social realities of the times and how trapping yet liberating sexuality could be. Important, urgent and beautiful, Phoenix Dance Theatre have created a show that will leave a lasting image in your mind.
Inside Giovanni’s Room will be performed at Sadler Wells from 11-14 June.
Words by Hannah Goldswain
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